


Initial Reaction Fics from a Fan

by amtrak12



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Reaction pieces started the following morning after 4.15 as I attempt to cope with the emotional fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Installments vary by length and are ordered chronologically. Each piece can exist as a standalone. I've basically been writing sequels as my emotions demand. I've got a 4th piece started. I don't know if I'll finish it or if I'll write any more after the fourth piece. The emotions are starting to settle into something heavier I have to fic with so these reaction one-shots are getting harder to produce. Not much editing was done. These are very rough.
> 
> This first one takes place immediately after the goodbye scene.

The tears came back as the house slipped away. Though, "came back" implied they stopped, and Myka knew they hadn't. She felt them burning in the back of her throat making the smile and hug and speech difficult to manage. But once she was around the curve of the road, they broke free again.

Pete didn't say anything at first. Just let her cry in shaky deep breaths and jerks. Let her fight to not break down and completely fall apart from the pain.

Because it hurt. Oh god, did it hurt that Helena was back there, away from the warehouse, away from her. By choice.

She was being selfish. Just because she had left and returned to the warehouse, didn't mean it was Helena's path. It wasn't her place to say what Helena wanted.

But it felt wrong. In her gut, saying goodbye and driving away from Helena felt devastatingly wrong.

Myka always listened to her gut. Maybe not as obviously as Pete listened to his, but she did. Just usually, she could justify her gut feelings with facts and concrete observations.

Usually, but not always. And the last time she couldn't, her faith in her instincts had been shaken. Demolished.

But in the end, she'd been right.

She couldn't help but think her instincts were right this time, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few months later set in a made-up Season 5. Warning for Nate?

**(Months Later)**

Helena stood in the dining room, staring out the window. It's the smaller window in the house, inadequate for proper thinking, but this room is less exposing than the living room. Less judging.

She heard Nate walk in behind her, a few minutes before she felt ready. But then, she'd never felt ready for these conversations. They'd always been pulled out of her, demanded of her. Held her trapped within them until another truth was brought to light and another fragment of her soul had been collected.

Not with Nate, though. She'd danced around his questions after the retrieval, revealing little more than her real name and that she'd used to work with the agents that had visited.

She needed to change that. He deserved more before she left.

Nate walked around until he was almost beside her.

"So."

Helena turned and gave him a small smile. "So."

She fell into another silence. She hadn't done this sort of parting of the ways before. Or perhaps she'd done too many of them.

"You're going back to your old job, then?"

Helena nodded.

"That... secret agent thing?"

His phrasing amused her, reminded her why she'd been content with him for awhile. She smiled again, more genuine this time.

"Yes. That secret agent thing."

He just nodded in response, and she knew it was still her turn to say more. To explain.

"I didn't think I could before. I thought I needed to stay away from that life."

"Because you lost your daughter?"

She met Nate's eyes finally. She'd felt angry at first when she discovered that Pete had shared that information, but it had been more out of habit than actual feeling. In truth, she'd been grateful she hadn't had to tell Nate herself. And it had limited the questions he'd asked her later. He'd seemed to have taken it as an answer to most of her mysteries.

She took a breath before responding. "Partly." Christina was partly the answer to her many choices. Myka had been right about that.

"Did she... was it because of your job?"

And Helena knew he was remembering Adelaide being taken, of his daughter's life being put at risk because of a warehouse mission. Without the details, it'd be easy for him to assume that's why she'd fled.

"No." She almost laughs with her next breath. "The job is filled with horrors and pain, but... it's also filled with miracles. Unbelievable moments that make you feel hope." She shook her head. "But neither is what stole my daughter from me. She died in a senseless murder. The victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She saw him question, in his eyes. Question, but not ask. He'd been holding back a lot lately. It seemed only fair. She'd held back so much, after all.

"I," she searched for the words, "abused my job. When I couldn't save her, and I'd grown mad with blaming myself, I turned to blaming the world. It... didn't end well, and even when I was again deemed trustworthy and fit for duty, I thought," she hesitated again. "Well, I thought I knew better. That I wasn't fit enough to be permanently reinstated. I thought I needed to get away from that life, try something else. Something... normal."

Nate was staring at her, stoically. "It didn't work, did it?"

She looked into his face and saw the quiet life that could have been, the normal, family life society had tried forcing upon her that didn't seem so stifling in this world. "It almost did."

Silence fell over them again. Helena had nothing else she could explain, not to him.

Finally, Nate said, "Stay safe out there."

Helena swallowed back the pain and nodded. She returned his embrace, breathing in from his shoulder for a moment, exhaling and letting go. She kissed his cheek, and with a murmured _take care_ , she slipped away to head for the door. She wanted to get out before he saw the tear escaping down her cheek.

The pain's still there, outside in the sunlight that's too bright. But this wasn't the heavy wounds that leave you drowning and bleeding out. This was more shallow stings of regret and loss, the kind she could breathe through, make peace with.

She placed her bag in her trunk and climbed into her car. The sound of the engine starting filled her with relief.

She needed this. It was the right thing to do.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a knock at the door.

Myka halted in the living room and looked back towards the entryway. No one knocked at the B&B's door. No one visited unexpectedly. She thought for a moment it had only been Pete tapping on something upstairs, but then the knock came again. It was definitely the front door.

Frowning, Myka retraced her steps and opened it. "Helena!"

Helena smiled, small and hesitant. "Hello, Myka."

Myka swallowed. A war was breaking out inside her with her heart racing, and her throat tightening, and her mind fighting and utterly failing to understand what was happening.

"May I come in?"

Myka nodded. "Yeah. Of course." She stepped aside and registered the bag in Helena's hand as the woman entered the foyer. There was a bag. She hadn't seen Helena in months, had only spoken with her once, last week, about essentially nothing, and here she was. With a bag. She felt light-headed and didn't think the oxygen was being pulled into her bloodstream.

"What are you doing here?" Myka had to cross her arms. She wasn't trying to be defensive, not towards Helena. She was just trying to keep herself composed, to keep her heart from hoping. She couldn't go through the pain of their last encounter again.

"I'm here with a question for you."

Myka felt like her entire being had been compacted down to a single dot, and she was acutely aware of every square inch of the air around her. She didn't know if it was fear or anticipation.

Helena took a breath. "I wanted to ask you if I may come back."

Confusion was the only definable emotion. "What?"

"Would you be alright if I were to become an agent again?"

Helena looked so serious, so uncertain yet a bit hopeful. But Myka still didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

Helena tried to smile, but a hint of tears watered it down. "I'd like to return to the warehouse and rejoin the team. But I won't if you'd prefer me to stay away."

Myka shook her head. "But I... I'm not in control of that. You'd have to talk to Mrs. Frederic and, and the Regents."

"I have." Something erupted in Myka at the confirmation, and she had to hold herself tighter to remain calm. "I've technically been reinstated, but I insisted on talking to you first, before it became official."

"You've been reinstated?" She felt like her entire body had been shut down in order to maintain this appearance of calm. There didn't seem to be anything of physical substance left in her.

Helena nodded. "But last time, I was rather the intruder. I don't want that again. I want to be sure the team is comfortable with me rejoining. I don't want to disrupt things."

She was reinstated, but she wasn't staying yet. She wasn't here for keeps.

"Do you want to stay here and work at the warehouse again?"

For some reason, Helena looked surprised. "Not if you don't want me to. I won't stay if you don't want me here."

The feeling was returning to Myka's body, and it was carrying anger with it. "But what about Adelaide and Nate?"

"It didn't work," Helena said quietly.

"That was the normal life you wanted, and you're just what? Giving it up?"

"Myka, I'm not - I tried!" Helena snapped. "I did try. But it wasn't my life. It was an illusion I wanted to stay in. You saw it for what it was right away. I took a bit longer."

Myka still felt at war. Her arms had been crossed so tightly and for so long, they now ached.

"I want to come home."

It was Helena's tone that broke her, that pulled down the wall to let hope run free. The relief was dizzying.

"Okay."

Helena's face cleared. "Okay?"

Myka nodded and a smile toyed with the corners of her mouth. "Okay, yes. You should stay."

Helena looked as scared of being hopeful as Myka had felt. She took a step closer. "You do want me here?"

Myka nodded again. "We missed you," she said through the tears prickling beneath her eyes. "You belong here at the warehouse."

Helena raised her hand up to cup Myka's cheek. A small smile of her own showed through. "Yes, I believe I do."

The full smile broke free from Myka with an out rush of breath. She continued to beam as the knowledge of Helena officially returning as an agent washed over her. She uncrossed her arms and pulled the woman into a hug. Helena returned the hug much like she'd returned the previous one, and then Myka felt her sigh and sink into her. It made Myka curl her arms around her tighter. She tilted her head into Helena's neck, closed her eyes, and memorized the feel of Helena tucked into her, the warmth and the almost surrender that radiated from her. She didn't want to let go.

And she wouldn't have to. Helena was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, decent possibility of a fourth piece that would include some actual romance. Anything further depends if I've started a more substantial fic or not.


End file.
